Seeing Beyond Appearances

As 2024 draws to a close, I have grown especially fond of the memes that identify this past year as one of the most difficult ever!  I don’t need to get into the details for you to know what I mean. While things could have been a whole lot worse, 2024 was a year I would not choose to relive!  I’m weary. The whole world seems weary.

Despite what we might see on the surface of things: the conflict, the wars, the politicking, perceived division, etc.; a much greater movement is happening. That which has been born out of fear and rooted in power and control is breaking apart. On many days, it may not look like it, but it is.

Perhaps the best way to see this breaking apart is to look at the political conflicts in our world, in particular, the men with large faces and even louder voices who seem to be leading us all toward our own destruction. Interestingly, those who are the most boisterous and who garner the most attention are those who perfectly represent and embody the dying system. These are the men who have thrived in a patriarchal and hierarchical system and who are clinging and grasping after the control they believe they need to maintain their power. Damn the rest of humanity, what matters to them is their power.

While we may look upon these men as our enemies, what if instead, they are the vehicles through which the dying world will finally die so that a new world might come forth. What if, as my mom used to say, “the kitchen has to get dirtier before it can become clean.” What if what seems to be humanity moving backward, we are simply being pulled back like a sling shot so we can be hurled to our new futures?

Things are not always as they appear to be. As human beings, we see our lives and our world through the limitations of our judgment which has been formed by our preferences, previous conditioning, and societal expectations. In order to survive the breaking apart of what has been and the temporary discomfort of that breaking, we have to see through different eyes. We have to lay aside our own judgments and perceptions and allow for another view. For me, this means turning to my highest self (what some might call God) and asking to see the truth beyond the illusion. In every instance where I have asked for help in seeing so that I might understand, I have been surprised at what I’m shown and in that surprise, I have found comfort, along with the courage to keep on existing while the entire world seems to be falling apart.  

As we timidly move toward 2025, let us be open to seeing beyond appearances and to the Love that is ultimately guiding it all.


Seeing through the Lens of Love

The Order of the Magdalene Formation Program provides you with resources, knowledge, and tools to support you in your own journey of self-discovery and empowerment. Through this eighteen-month training program, you will:

  • Become rooted in scholarly and intuitive knowledge of the Magdalene, her role in the ministry of Jesus, and her example in the ongoing mission of Love.
  • Discern your own unique giftedness and how you are called to use these gifts for the sake of your own fulfillment and in service to the world.
  • Learn practical skills for uncovering and healing all that separates you from Love and from living as your most authentic self.
  • Rediscover ancient knowledge and practices for self-healing.
  • Cultivate and deepen your contemplative life while growing in contentment and compassion.

Created and facilitated by Lauri Ann Lumby

64 weeks of content

7 individual courses

6 private mentoring sessions

Humanity’s Turning Point

From the moment that Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, I have been both deep in prayer and physically writhing from the effects of being an empath. I cannot help but feel the world in rapt and anxious attention to the conflict along with the grief, fear, and enormous courage of the Ukrainian citizens. Still in the throes of the excruciating pain of an empathic full-body migraine, I feel at the center of it all –

ENORMOUS HOPE.

As a species, we find ourselves at a potential turning point – one, through which, we might finally break free from the clutches of tyranny. An innocent nation is being attacked and the court of popular opinion leans on the side of Ukraine. Russians themselves decry the actions of their president and those who support him and are rising in protest. Members of the Russian military are beginning to question the orders they’ve been given along with the reasons why. In a recent phone call with a family member in Ukraine, a friend learned that many Russian soldiers are discussing the possibility of simply laying down their arms.

Russian soldiers laying down their arms? Imagine that!

Imagine that! Imagine the precedent this would set for the people of our world!  In a world where recent wars have been created by men in power for the sake of other men in power. In world where economies and the bank accounts of the wealthiest in our world have become dependent on war. In a world where the innocent have no voice and the soldiers are simply doing what they are told. What would happen if those sent to fight another’s war simply lay down their arms and joined hands with those they’ve been told are their enemy?  What would happen? 

We would suddenly find ourselves living in a whole new world.


Mystic:

Lauri Ann Lumby was born with a deeply introverted (yet social) and contemplative spirit. She is gifted with seeing the truth beyond the illusion and because of this gift, has been called a mystic, a visionary, and a prophet. Lauri is also a catalyst, meaning that those things that are stuck or which need to come to an end begin to move, simply because of her presence. This reality has earned her the designation of “Priestess of Death” – a title she willingly embraces knowing that in every ending is the promise of new life.

We are the Storm

The storm isn’t coming.  The storm is already here and

WE ARE THAT STORM!

Humanity is crying out for a new way of being. One that is no longer based in the model of imprisonment that has been imposed on us – the model rooted in manipulation through fear, power, oppression, and control.

  • We have grown weary of being the backs upon which white men have become grotesquely wealthy while we struggle and fight to survive. 
  • We have grown weary of a world defined by war.
  • We have become sickened by those who grow increasingly rich by a world always at war.
  • We cry out in agony over the destruction wrought on our beautiful planet by the mechanisms of corporate gluttony and greed.
  • Our hearts cry out on behalf of all those who suffer under the current system – especially the poor, homeless, elderly, sick, and mentally ill.
  • We ache over the injustices in our world and have cried out:

ENOUGH!

We are crying out with our feet by refusing to continue in this charade:

  • We have staged a worker’s revolution – refusing to participate in a system that is against us rather than for us.
  • Many have created their own work built on their passions which give life meaning or choosing work that provides better balance.
  • Increasing numbers of people are standing up against racism and brutality.
  • We have lost faith in a governance that works on behalf of their financial sponsors instead of the constituents they were elected to serve.
  • Many are untying themselves from a financial system based in debt and are finding financial autonomy and empowerment outside of that system.
  • Increasing numbers are connecting and gathering in support of a simpler, gentler life that takes less of a toll on our fragile environment.
  • People are standing up in defense of our planet!
  • People are coming together in search of common ground and are turning away from the created division upon which the current system thrives.
  • We have stopped believing in a media that has lost its sense of true journalism in favor of hype.
  • We have turned away from an outside perceived authority and have harnessed the inner authority and sovereignty that has been within us all along.

We are the storm that the system never expected.

Lost in the arrogance and pride of their superiority over the masses, the system expected we would continue being obedient, compliant, subservient, and weak.  The system expected that we would continue believing in their capitalistic lies (ie: everyone has the same opportunity to become wealthy). The system expected that they could continue to manipulate and control us through fear and false promises.

But the system has failed.

A system built on fear, power, oppression, and control cannot stand.  A system that thrives on division is unsustainable and will eventually collapse under its own weight.

We have arrived at that place of collapse.

We are the storm that hastens the collapse by refusing to believe the lies while untying ourselves from fear-based conditioning. We are the storm by coming together instead of participating in division. We are the storm by finding our own inner authority, standing in our truth, and using our voice to speak out against the lies and for the truth. We are the storm when we use our feet to forge a different path, and our hands to create a whole new world.

We are the storm the system never expected, and we are legion!


What are your gifts and how are you called to use them for the sake of your own fulfillment and in service to the betterment of the world?

What is Your Magic?, online course created by Lauri Ann Lumby, OM, OPM, OSF, MATS  was created to help you discover the answer!

  • 13- self paced lessons
  • online in your own time
  • discussion facilitated by Lauri Ann Lumby.

Deepening

So far, January has not been at all what I expected. At 57, I’ve learned to be pretty much free of expectations, so I’m not sure what I thought 2022 would bring….but certainly not this.

I’m not even sure what “this” is. Certain things are obvious:

  • A world on the brink of war.
  • A raging pandemic.
  • Continuing conflict over vaccines, masks, conspiracy theories, etc.
  • Government corruption.
  • Increasing restrictions on reproductive rights and access to voting.
  • The on-going unveiling of the evils of the ruling system.

Sadly, this has all become “business as usual.”  War? Famine? Pestilence? Death? Everyday occurrences – right?! As Lord Varys (Game of Thrones) once said, “Perhaps we’ve grown so used to horror, we assume there is no other way.” 

The good news is there is another way.  It is the way I am choosing:

As the world continues its path of self-destruction, I’ve been serving as objective witness while quietly building my own new world.

As one cannot stop a runaway train, neither can we prevent the current world from its unraveling. It needs to unravel, but we don’t need to unravel with it. Instead, we can observe the world in its dying from a place of detachment, non-judgment, and non-reaction. Letting go of our need to control or “save” the dying world frees us to get on with the real business at hand:

Building our own new worlds.

Building my own new world is exactly what I find myself doing. It’s quiet work. It’s also mostly invisible. And it begins with choice. Asking myself:

  • To what do I want to give my energy and attention? 
  • With whom and how do I want to spend that time? 
  • In what do I find meaning and purpose?
  • What gives me joy and helps me find peace?
  • What feels like a good balance between solitude and engagement?
  • What do my body and soul need to feel healthy and whole?
  • How do I want to move within and upon this world?

For the past many months, I’ve been seeking the answers to these questions and as the answers arise, I have been choosing them. Now I’m being given an opportunity to put these answers into practice. The result has been a quieter, gentler, more peaceful and contented existence than what I had before – especially when the before was very much defined by societal conditioning and the expectations of others. No more! Now I’m living by my choices around what gives me peace and realizing the rewards of that choice. If I could provide a single image to what my new world looks like, it would be this:


Lauri Ann Lumby, OM, OPM, MATS

Lauri’s gifts as a mentor are centered in her ability to see. She sees your truth along with what might be hindering your ability to live that truth fully. By seeing clearly, Lauri can help guide you through the process of identifying, healing and transforming the wounds, fears, traumas and conditioning that keep you from living a life in which your purpose is fully embodied and your mission fulfilled.

Lauri provides this mentoring one-on-one and through her classes and training programs.

Email lauri@lauriannlumby.com to inquire.